Ask anyone who’s talked with me lately and they’ll tell you this – Trina loves her new phone!

I loved my AT&T Tilt – it did what I needed it to do until only recently when it couldn’t keep up with the Joneses. But my Galaxy S III has been able to do what I wanted and then some.

And I understand why people get so excited about “apps.” I’ve had far too much fun at Google Play finding and trying out apps for my phone.

In addition to the software I mentioned in my previous entry, I have installed the following wonderful apps:

• RealCalc A scientific calculator, like you do.
• ColorDict It’s nice having a dictionary on one’s phone. Also got the thesaurus and spelling app.
• Lightning Bug As recommended by a friend – I think I’m going to try sleeping with this ambient/white noise maker. First night with it a success.
• Alarm Clock Extreme I’m going to try and use my phone as my daily alarm and this program looks like it will fit the bill. Will probably buy it.
• Book Catalogue I really wish there was an app that synced with LibraryThing, but this at least can pull info from Goodreads. (So now I have to keep that database up to date too. I prefer LT, however.)
• SoundHound Recommended by the friend who recommended Lightning Bug. That I can catch songs when I’m offline is fab. Now I just have to remember that I have this program when I hear a song that I want to ID.
• Smart Tools THIS is why they made Smartphones! I love all of the tools from this program: compass, flashlight, decibel meter, etc. Brilliant.
• Cocktail Flow Dad had this ad-supported app on his MP3 player and it looked fun. And best of all, the ads don’t show up when you’re offline.
• iBird Pro Many’s the time I wondered what that birdsong was. Perhaps this program will help…
• The Night Sky Many’s the time I wondered what that celestial object was. Perhaps this program will help…
• Periodic Table Well, duh, I’m a chemistry teacher!
• OI Shopping List Going to see if I can switch from paper lists to using my phone. So far, so good!
• Alchemy Not the Popcap game of the same name – this interesting thing has you mix “elements” together to make new stuff. More interesting than it sounds. I made a whale!
• Angry Birds Like you do… (They only have the ad-supported version, but once again, offline = no ads.)
• Glow Hockey 2 Pro With Bejeweled 2 not yet available for my version of Android, I think this will be my “go to game.” Quite fun.

This isn’t all of the apps I’ve got on my phone, but they are some of the niftiest ones. I’ve got a couple of Text-To-Speech programs/voices that I’m trying out as well. CoPilot needs a decent voice. If any of you have nifty Android apps that you love, share the love – I’m always looking for more ideas.

Over four years ago, I bought my first Smartphone, an AT&T Tilt (AKA HTC TytnII). It was a wonderful addition to my World of Geek, but like all things, it got old. And in the World of Geek, a 4-year old Smartphone is ancient.

With my PC upgrade to Ubuntu 12.04, I lost out on my way to sync my phone & PC. No more contacts or calendar syncs for the treen! That was not good. So I started researching my options. I discovered that Android phones sync to Google and my e-mail program (Evolution still) can access Google calendars. So next up, who made a nice Android phone that also has built-in GPS and can work on AT&T’s system?

Although I am not AT&T’s biggest fan, I do like their Pay As You Go feature and I have over $170 worth of calls & texts on it. (Only costs $100 a year to top off the baby, and I’ve yet to use $100 worth of calls in one year.) My only drawback to switching to Android is the loss of DVD Profiler. There is a rumor, however, that there IS an Android version coming. Some day. Maybe. So I’ll have to be careful buying DVDs when I’m oot & aboot until they get it updated.

OK, so AT&T, GPS, Android, up to date (or as up to date as can be). These were my criteria. And I settled on the Samsung Galaxy S II. But as I was researching this phone, I read about the NEXT version of the Galaxy S. And when I started reading the specs on it, I realized THAT’s what I needed to get.

So I had picked my Phone of Choice – the Samsung Galaxy S III. It wasn’t out yet when I first chose it, but I figured I could last awhile without backing up my calendar & contacts. I already had everything copied over to GMail for the eventual switch to Android, however.

As I researched more, I discovered a drawback to my planned upgrade. The newer Smartphones require a MicroSIM card, rather than the regular SIM card. I read up on people trimming their cards to fit, and buying a $25+ trimmer. But I went to my local AT&T store and a very perky and helpful lady (I think she was bored with no one to talk to) said that they could transfer my info onto a new MicroSIM for a $25 fee. Heck, that worked for me!

In order to use my Pay As You Go account on the phone, I needed to buy the phone outright. And turns out Amazon.com was selling the phone for $549. I hemmed & hawed for quite awhile until I broke down last Thursday and ordered it. And then got into my usual geeky OMG there’s a package coming today!!!!!! mode yesterday while I waited for UPS to arrive with my new phone.

I ordered the pebble blue phone, which only looks blue under the right lighting. It’s very pretty. Bigger length & width, but much thinner than my old phone. After installing the battery, I plugged it in to charge, then connected it to my Wi-Fi. After syncing my calendar and contacts, I played around with Google Play looking for apps to download. And my sister surprised me by finding me through Google Talk. My phone wasn’t a phone yet and I was already receiving “texts.” Heh.

Once it was sufficiently charged, I took it to the AT&T store to switch SIM cards. The gentlemen there were very nice and I didn’t even have to take the old SIM out for the process. I called the folks as soon as the SIM was in place and everything worked just as it should. The folks said that I sounded clear to them (and they to me). So yay – it even works as a phone!

Later in the evening, I purchased and installed CoPilot Live. This was the GPS software I’d been using on my Tilt – inexpensive (much moreso than Garmin or TomTom) and reliable. After discovering that Samsung’s Find My Phone software doesn’t work in the US (an aggravating half hour of installs & checks & still nothing), I also bought Cerberus Anti-Theft for my phone. And once installed, it found my phone. (After judiang‘s recent “lost iPhone” scare, I thought I should get that pronto.)

Today, I’m still working on getting the phone how I want it. Alas, Bejeweled 2, my go-to game on the old phone, isn’t available yet for this version of Android (Ice Cream Sandwich). I haven’t found a euchre game yet for it, either, which was my other go-to game. There are several to choose from there, however. I’m also going to set up the SD card (currently an 8GB card, though I have a 32GB card now on order) to be my music drive.

Turns out the earbuds that came with the phone are pretty dire – the music was tinny, like it was being played by a cell phone (heh). But with my nice headphones, the music sounds proper. And the little pause button on the headphones works (although the volume buttons don’t seem to – which, considering the cable is designed for iPods, is OK – perk with the pause working!)

Anyhoo, some more tweaking (the best part of any new tech, IMO) and it’ll be PERFECT! Or at least as perfect as it can be. Woohoo! New Smartphone!

Well, there’s a big ol’ Winter Storm going on now, which is why we were released 2 hours early. So I might as well enlighten you, dear readers, on why I chose the AT&T Tilt as my new best buddy cell phone/PDA/etc.

I have a Dell Axim X50 from work which I use religiously. Ever since I got it, I discovered that I could actually remember meetings & things if I had them on a nice little PDA. But the trouble is, it’s (a) old now and (b) a work item, so putting personal things on it (like, say, my DVD collection) wasn’t good. My tax refund was nice (well, it sucked they took my money interest free for so long, but there ya go) so I decided to start pricing PDAs. The major thing is that the had to have Windows Mobile 6 (because of my DVD database software, DVD Profiler). When I researched Win Mobile 6 devices, I found out that they were either phones or GPSs. I didn’t want one of those! Or did I…

trinalin rationalizes the purchase of an AT&T Tilt

So I did some research. For my DVD Profiler Mobile to work, the device not only needed Windows Mobile 6, but the Professional Edition. It only works on touch-screen devices. Suddenly my choices dropped considerably. I decided to research WM6 machines with touch screens. And since I had NO intention of going with some 2+ year contract and $40+ a month for a rip-off service (for a little as I use my current cell phone), I started reaching Pay As You Go options.

I currently have a Cingular GoPhone as my cell. And AT&T (which bought Cingular) turns out to be the best service for this area. (Oh, and I found out why my phone didn’t work in Vermont when elsaf & judiang‘s AT&T phones did – the Pay As You Go service doesn’t work in Vermont.) So now I was looking through the WM6 devices from AT&T. I researched whether the SIM from my current phone would work in the Tilt, and from what I’d read, it would.

The Tilt also has an in-built GPS in it (nyah nyah iPhone holders), but I wasn’t sure I wanted to use the $10/month service that AT&T was touting. A bit more research and I found out that the GPS in the phone plays nicely with both Garmin XT and Tom Tom software. It also works with Google Maps (though you need a Wi-Fi or data connection for that). I priced Garmin & Tom Tom and decided to go with Garmin cuz I knew the interface somewhat. (Though if my phone sends me through the Holland Tunnel again, I may have to visit the honchos at Garmin and yell at ’em.) Now the Garmin software locks itself to the microSD card that it’s on, so I researched that and found out a way to transfer the stuff to another card. I have an 8GB microSD card on order (my last hold-out on phone customization) which I’ll add the Garmin software to (it arrived the day before the phone did) when it does show up.

As you saw yesterday, there’s also a camera feature in the Tilt. When I was at the Lake and realized I’d left my camera at home, I thought “If I had one of those cell phones with a camera…” which is probably the moment when I decided to research WM6 cell phones. The phone also has wi-fi capabilities, which will let me use the data features without using up all my GoPhone money.

I had one major thing holding me back from doing this – Outlook. I do not like Outlook. I may grumble about FirstClass at work, but hell, it sure beats Outlook. I didn’t want to install Outlook on my home computer. (It’s installed on my work computer, but once I clear out my old PDA, I’ll uninstall it. Ah, how nice.) Earlier in the year I’d researched an Outlook Alternative and discovered BirdieSync. It allows WM’s ActiveSync to synchronize with Thunderbird and it’s calendar plug-in Lightning. So I switched over from Pegasus (*sniff* I’ll miss you ol’ friend!) to Thunderbird and installed Lightning. It was rather nice to combine both of my address books (my e-mail one and address/phone one) knowing I’d be able to use ’em with my phone. I also entered all of the March dates from my old PDA into Lightning.

Yesterday the phone arrived. The first thing I did was put the SIM card in from my old phone. Then the battery. And then the moment of truth – I turned it on. It did its first time calisthenics, then I used it to dial my home phone. My phone rang. Ooooh! Then I phoned it from my home phone – the cell phone rang. Oooh! My Tilt is Pay As You Go! 🙂

Now it was time to update the ROM and then customize it. For those of you with a Tilt (or HTC Kaiser or TyTN II) or pondering it, I’ll share with you some of my research findings.

trinalin customizes her AT&T Tilt

• Upgrading the ROM to the latest version from HTC. The whole time I was doing this I was thinking “Don’t go out, power! Please don’t go out!” thanks to the flickers we’d had earlier in the day.
• Preventing the phone from installing all of the crapware. I did this after I upgraded the ROM. I was able to see what the instructions meant by the “3 second countdown” since I’d watched it the first time I turned it on.
• Installing HTC Home. The AT&T Tilt got rebranded by AT&T and thus lost some of it’s cool HTC Kaiser features. I really like the HTC Home look, though there were several others I tried as well.
• Finding a nice Purple Theme for my Tilt. I’m still working on this, though I have two that are pretty good. Indeed, the first would be perfect if it didn’t put purple lines through the contact list (though the person who created the theme intends to update it, I believe). I’ll keep searching for one, but I really like the look of it thus far.
• Getting ActiveSync & ZoneAlarm to like each other. I was getting frustrated when I kept getting errors while syncing. And eventually I thought “I’ll bet it’s that damn ZoneAlarm.” Sure enough, it was. These nice instructions have made it so that I no longer have to turn off ZoneAlarm to sync.

I’ll be adding games once the microSD card arrives. I’m really loving the phone so far. I’ve added my address to the GPS software and switched to the British voice (though, alas, it’s female. It was great listening to the male voice on the Garmin we used on our Vermont trip). Can’t actually use it to go anywhere yet since we’re in the midst of this snow storm, but when things clear up, I’ll test it out with the $10 vent-attached phone holder in my car. Hoping to use it next Friday when I pick the folks up in Cincinnati.

Hola! I’m typing this post on my new Smartphone, an AT&T Tilt.

More info later when I’m back at my PC.